Partnership Work
The church district and congregation partnerships within the United Evangelical Mission are an important field of ecumenical learning. Many of these partnerships came into being in the 1970s and 1980s. They enable the congregations to experience what it means to be part of the worldwide church. The people actively involved in the partnerships are an indispensable treasure for the UEM.
The UEM partnership network encompasses around one hundred partnerships between church districts and congregations in Germany with church districts and parishes in Africa or Asia.
In a world full of economic inequality and injustice, partnerships are an expression of giving and receiving from each other in the one body of Christ.
The encounters with the partners open people to look at their own environment in a different way. “Without the ecumenical partnership our congregation would be poorer”, said an elder in conversation with Michael Brandt, the Partnership Secretary of the UEM.
Examination of existing partnerships
Partnerships change: after 20 to 30 years of partnership relations there is a new generation responsible. This leads to an examination of the partnership work in some church districts. “Evaluation” is what is on the agenda. The question of the meaning of partnership is raised once again.
The financial crisis in the regional churches and in their congregations and church districts, not to mention a certain tiredness in giving to good causes, also affects the partnerships. It is a case of planning partnership work with reduced financial means available. There are not only financial crises in Germany, but also with the partners and member churches in Africa and Asia, compelling those concerned to set new priorities in partnership work.
The UEM advises the various partnership circles; for example at the so-called Round Table, where all the partnership groups with a partnership to one of the churches in Africa or Asia are represented; or at the partnership seminar, attended by all groups with a partnership to one specific country. The UEM also organises consultations where the German partnership groups linked to a certain church meet up with the partnership representatives from the member churches in Africa or Asia.
